Source: ClassWarfareExists.com - 11/12/13, Posted by Jameson
 

As you do your holiday shopping this year, chances are you’ll be surrounded by products that were made using prison labor.

Corporations are realizing that they don’t need to send jobs overseas to turn a profit any more. No, they didn’t have a change of heart and a new found willingness to share their hard earned profits with their workers. Instead, they’ve found a class of people that they can basically use for free. Even better, these people have almost no rights. No protections. No voice. They are numerous and growing every year. What corporations have realized is that they are sitting on the largest population of prisoners in the world.

RT - 11/13/13

Police in Seattle, Washington have responded to a major public outcry by disabling a recently discovered law enforcement tool that critics said could be used to conduct sweeping surveillance across the city.

Last week, Seattle’s The Stranger published an in-depth look at a little known new initiative taking place within the city that involved the installation of dozens of devices that would create a digital mesh network for law enforcement officers. The devices — small white-boxes equipped with antennas and adorned on utility poles — would broadcast data wirelessly between nodes so police officers could have their own private network to more easily share large amounts of data. As The Stranger pointed out, however, those same contraptions were able to collect data on internet-ready devices of anyone within reach, essentially allowing the Seattle Police Department to see where cell phones, laptops and any other smart devices operating within reach were located.
 

More: RT.com

The Guardian - 11/12/13, Adam Gabbatt

Business Insider - 11/13/13, Gus Lubin
 

"In my view, the American dream of striking it rich is merely a well-marketed fantasy that keeps the bottom 99.5% hoping for better and prevents social and political instability," the manager wrote in an email to Professor G. William Domhoff of the University of California at Santa Cruz.

The manager, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his relationship with wealthy clients, expresses his frustration with a financial system that is rigged to help the elites at the cost of everyone else.

More: BusinessInsider.com

MSN News - 11/13/13, By McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Positive attitudes about Congress have been hovering in the low double digits for weeks — and, according to one survey, the body now ranks below root canals, cockroaches and traffic jams.

Just when it seemed Americans’ approval of Congress could not drop any lower, it did — to 9 percent, the lowest in Gallup’s history of posing the question, the organization said Tuesday.

More: News.MSN.com